Author:Gu Xinping

[CAEA Web News ]On October 13, 2004, Mr.Zhang Huazhu, Chairman of China Atomic Energy Authority(CAEA), met with Mr. Bugat, Chairman of Commissariat à l’energie atomique(CEA) of France, who was accompanying French President Chirac for the state visit in China. Both Chairmen broadly exchanged the views and opinions on Sino-French nuclear energy cooperation.

Mr. Zhang Huazhu mentioned, the state visit of President in China scored a great achievement and it would further expand the existing cooperation between China and France in terms of politics, economy, science and technology, culture and etc. As the important part of bilateral cooperation，Sino-French cooperation in the nuclear field should move forward based on the common understanding. China and France has a great potential to cooperate with each other in the fields of nuclear power and nuclear fuel cycle. As a competent organization in Chinese nuclear industry, CAEA is willing to support the bilateral collaboration in those fields between enterprises of both parties. 

Mr. Bugat said，France and China had established a Strategic Partnership. This partnership should cover the area of nuclear energy.  The cooperation of two sides in the nuclear fuel cycle should be mutually beneficial. Besides, management and disposal of radioactive waste is the common challenge faced by the two sides. The cooperation and exchange in this field should be further strengthened. 

Mr.Bugate expressed his wish of expanding the cooperation in the way of Associate Laboratory and made new proposals to the Chinese counterpart on material research, severe accidents management, seismic study and vitrification. Meanwhile, he also suggested to expand the current training program from engineering technicians to the students in the universities. The detailed proposal of training 10 Chinese university students annually in the nuclear-related area is put forward by French side. All these proposals have been appreciated and accepted by Chinese side in principle and suggested to be carefully studied and discussed in the coming Steering Committee Meeting and Coordination Committee Meeting.  （Gu Xinping）